Vadersteen expose on the Audiophile industry

[Passive_audio_enthusiast]

In a relative context to the above, leaving aside the cost, do expensive materials like diamond or beryllium tweeters result in much clearer distortion free sound as compared to the mainstream tweeters ?

No, measurements shows it’s possible to design a metal dome tweeter of just one inch with a coin sized neodymium magnet, virtually avoiding any distortion audible to our ears. The ones on the KEF R Meta Series are an example for this.

The first graph is from the old Kef r7 and second from focal utopia with beryllium tweeters.

Both has distortions below our audibility when pushed to produce 100 db. However Kef is better technically, but not essentially audibly better.

However the KEFs has a constant directivity which spreads the sound evenly to the sides. The focal on the other side has a wider radiation pattern which makes the soundstage larger when listened at the sweetspot but it sounds tonally different outside the sweetspot.

forget the tweeters, the midrange on the focal has more distortion (see how high the second blue and red lines are) when pushed, still within safe limits!

 

[Nitin K]

No, measurements shows it’s possible to design a metal dome tweeter of just one inch with a coin sized neodymium magnet, virtually avoiding any distortion audible to our ears. The ones on the KEF R Meta Series are an example for this.

The first graph is from the old Kef r7 and second from focal utopia with beryllium tweeters.

Both has distortions below our audibility when pushed to produce 100 db. However Kef is better technically, but not essentially audibly better.

However the KEFs has a constant directivity which spreads the sound evenly to the sides. The focal on the other side has a wider radiation pattern which makes the soundstage larger when listened at the sweetspot but it sounds tonally different outside the sweetspot.

forget the tweeters, the midrange on the focal has more distortion (see how high the second blue and red lines are) when pushed, still within safe limits!

IF I am not mistaken Kef's had come out with Kevlar woofers too many years ago when it was unheard of.